City Food – Mohammed Moinuddin’s Butter Coffee, Chitli Qabar Chowk Food by The Delhi Walla - December 31, 20211 It was all acacia. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some cities never sleep. Like New York. Like Old Delhi. Any person living in, say, the Walled City’s Chitli Qabar Chowk will tell you that the sounds of their streets never disappear completely. Not at 11 pm, not at 1 am, not at 5 in the morning. The renewed restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic have (once again) severally restricted that carefree timelessness—this week a daily night curfew has been imposed between 10pm and 5am due to the fast-spreading Omicron variant. As a result, one of the losses the citizens face is that they can no longer amble to Chitli Qabar in icy midnight for Mohammed Moinuddin’s butter coffee. This quiet, unassuming man
City Hangout – Three Wild Malls, Nelson Mandela Marg Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - December 31, 20210 It was all acacia. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The outdoor sound system is playing soft, moody music. It could be Kenny G. Who could have thought that this desolate wilderness in south Delhi would one day be serenaded by a saxophonist’s tunes. That the rocky ridge that used to be littered with weedy bushes and snakes would be tamed with elegant tiles. That the thorny trees would give way to showrooms and cafes. The three shoulder-to-shoulder shopping malls in Vasant Kunj lie amid a vastness that continues to be partly undomesticated. The malls opened only about a decade back. Charanjit Singh, who retired as a professor at Centre of Russian Studies in nearby Jawaharlal Nehru University, was a JNU student from
City Faith – Pracheen Shiv Mandir, Daryaganj Faith by The Delhi Walla - December 31, 20210 A barely known temple. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The scenes outside are passing in a blur. All you can see are lights flashing on the glass window. It’s like sitting in a super-fast Shatabdi. But this isn’t a train. It’s a small, little-known temple in Old Delhi’s Daryaganj. The lights are flickering on the glass panes that protect the niches, enshrined with idols of gods. The effect is surreal — you stand still and watch the moving lights, including the reflection of buses and autos wheeling along the road outside, and you feel like you are moving. This afternoon, Pracheen Shiv Mandir is empty. It is difficult to spot the temple from the pavement outside — the entrance consists of a
City Home – Homeless Shelter, Central Delhi Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - December 29, 20210 A home for the houseless. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The floor is of plywood. The roof appears to be of white tarpaulin. The walls, too, are of the same white material. There are no windows. This is a home to many men, including Sanjay, Danish, Jawed, Hasim, Asif, Satish and Ameeruddin. These are actually some of the names that were jotted down last evening by the caretaker in the entry register of this night shelter for the homeless. It is 2pm and the place is empty, here in central Delhi. It permits free admissions only for the night. Although one person seems to be fast asleep on a bed. “He works here and is resting,” explains Ankit Sharma, the caretaker attending to his afternoon
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Mirza Ghalib, Ghalib Academy Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - December 28, 2021December 28, 20210 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Mirza Ghalib is eternal. The Agra-born poet lived in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran; his sasural was in modern-day Haryana (Loharu). While lying long buried in our city, Ghalib still gamely agreed to become a part of the Proust Questionnaire series in which folks are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore citizens’ distinct experiences. Oh well, actually, these responses of Ghalib are as imagined by scholar Aqil Ahmad, the longtime head of Ghalib Academy (but the verses below are cent percent of the poet). The principal aspect of your personality? Aashiq mizaj — I’m too romantic. Ishq ne Ghalib nikamma kar diya, Varna ham bhi aadmi the kaam ke. (Ghalib, love has turned me into a good-for-nothing
City Hangout – Pavement Art, Mandi House Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - December 26, 2021December 31, 20210 Mystery patterns. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Circles and squares rippling with wavelets. A sphere with a labyrinth. The word ‘Aah’ drawn in calligraphic style. And many other shapes. All of these are made with white chalk on the leaf-strewn pavement - including on a manhole. What are these? Artworks? Secret codes? Symbols left behind by a lost civilisation? These indeterminate patterns cover a corner plaza of the Mandi House traffic circle in central Delhi. This sunny afternoon, busy people are walking on these chalk drawings without throwing even a cursory glance at them. A guard on a break from duty at a nearby building is having his lunch by the pavement. He has no idea about the person, or persons, behind
City Library – American Center Library, Kasturba Gandhi Marg Library by The Delhi Walla - December 24, 20210 Sounds from silences. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If you listen, the steady hum of a machine can be heard. Maybe it’s the air conditioner. Or rather a radiator, for this is the cold season. The sound is somewhat comforting, as any mild white noise would be. Occasionally, the air is pierced by muffled whispers, and if a person decides to get up from their seat, you will hear the sound of their clothes brushing against the chair as noisily as chips crackling inside one’s own mouth. The American Library, in central Delhi’s Connaught Place, is like a small vessel for sounds and silences of great delicacy. These acoustic figments seem so fragile that if the door was suddenly to be
City Food – Masala Dosa, Sadar Bazar Food by The Delhi Walla - December 24, 20210 New in town. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Small and unpretentious. If it were to be in Paris, it would have been thought of as a neighbourhood bistro. But here in Gurgaon, it is simply Meenakshi Dosa Café. Sadar Bazar received its new landmark late last month. “I opened it on 20th November,” says owner Hemant Kumar, who is a native of Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh but speaks in fluent Hindi. The most endearing part of the café is its street-facing dosa counter, just outside the entrance. The cook, Mr Fareed, rustles out the dosas with expressions as solemn as a writer at work, and looks completely ignorant of the fuss he causes on the busy street. The sizzling sound of
City Landmark – Faces of Israeli Backpackers, Faruk Leather Shop Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - December 22, 20210 The souvenirs of the travellers. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The shop is empty. The same shop is also full. It is full of Israelis. Theirs faces are everywhere. Hundreds of passport-sized photos are spread across a large desk on the shop’s cash counter, protected by a glass top. Dozens of handwritten messages in Hebrew are plastered on the shop’s walls. Faruk Leather Shop in Paharganj’s Main Bazar is crammed with jackets and bags. It is also a shrine to what Paharganj was in the BC era (before Covid). Before the pandemic changed the world, Delhi’s budget hotel district teemed with international backpackers. Almost every shop’s banner was multilingual - in English, German, French, Italian and many other languages, including Hebrew.
City Library – Diplomat Maharajakrishna Rasgotra’s Books, Sapru House Library by The Delhi Walla - December 22, 2021December 22, 20211 Diplomat's poetic side. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.” This maxim by French epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin works equally well if “eat” is replaced with “read”. That certainly is a singularly effective way of developing deep intimacies with Maharajakrishna Rasgotra, even if you have never met the erudite man. A retired diplomat in his late 90s, he recently donated his entire collection of books to what is probably Delhi’s best public library that barely anybody visits. This afternoon, the first floor of the sprawling library in central Delhi’s Sapru House is empty. Books and journals are bound in various shades of brown, except for the diplomat’s collection, arranged reverently in